Randall Deihl

Sheehan's Cafe

1982

About

Randall Deihl was born in Sagniaw, Michigan in 1946 and attended the Detroit Institute of Arts and Crafts. Diehl was drafted into the Vietnam war, and afterwards attended the California Institute of Arts and Crafts where he received his BFA. Diehl then moved to New York where he worked as an illustrator for the New York Times. His paintings and political cartoons were exhibited in New York in the 1970s, and by the late 1970s he moved to western Massachusetts and befriended artists Gregory and Frances Gillespie who would form the Valley Realist Group with other artists in Northampton. He is well known for his realist paintings of Americana, from diners to baseball fields to bucolic landscapes. Nick's Nest is a diner he painted several times, and relates closely to Sweets, 1980, which is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. His works are also in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Portrait Gallery, among many others. He currently lives in Williamsburg, MA.